"Look! zee snake!" cried the professor, when Moses released him.
"We must get him out of that," remarked Van der Kemp, as he quietly made a noose with a piece of rattan, and fastened it to the end of a long pole. With the latter he poked the creature up, and, when it had uncoiled sufficiently, he slipped the noose deftly over its head.
"Clear out, friends," he said, looking round.
All obeyed with uncommon promptitude except the professor, who valiantly stood his ground. Van der Kemp pulled the python violently down to the floor, where it commenced a tremendous scuffle among the chairs and posts. The hermit kept its head off with the pole, and sought to catch its tail, but failed twice. Seeing this the professor caught the tail as it whipped against his legs, and springing down the steps so violently that he snapped the cord by which the hermit held it, and drew the creature straight out—a thick monster full twelve feet long, and capable of swallowing a dog or a child.
"Out of zee way!" shouted the professor, making a wild effort to swing the python against a tree, but the tail slipped from his grasp, the professor fell, and the snake went crashing against a log, under which it took refuge.
Nigel, who was nearest to it, sprang forward, fortunately caught its tail, and, swinging it and himself round with such force that it could not coil up at all, dashed it against a tree. Before it could recover from the shock, Moses had caught up a hatchet and cut its head off with one blow. The tail wriggled for a few seconds, and the head gaped once or twice, as if in mild surprise at so sudden a finale.
"Zat is strainch—very strainch," slowly remarked the professor, as, still seated on the ground, he solemnly noted these facts.
"Not so very strange, after all," said Van der Kemp; "I've seen the head of many a bigger snake cut off at one blow."
"Mine frond, you mistake me. It is zee vorking of physical law in zee spiritual vorld zat perplexes me. Moses has cut zee brute in two—physical fact, substance can be divided. Zee two parts are still alife, zerfore, zee life—zee spirit—has also been divided!"
"It is indeed very strange," said Nigel, with a laugh. "Stranger still that you may cut a worm into several parts, and the life remains in each, but, strangest of all, that you should sit on the ground, professor, instead of rising up, while you philosophise. You are not hurt, I hope—are you?"